I read new books available in the market. I am basically interested in reading novels, storybooks and grammar books. I read English grammar to improve on my language. Whenever I read any book, I focus on whether the sentences in the text are grammatically and semantically correct.

Yesterday, as I sat down to go through a book, its title caught my eye. There were three grammar errors in the title. The content was total rubbish. This made me question the existing freedom of authorship and publication in our country.

Everybody cannot be an author. Real authors are proficient in whatever they write. But in Nepal, anything someone writes is published and distributed in the market without bothering about the content. The situation is particularly terrible with the different textbooks available in the market. Most of them do not meet any standard: the language has grammatical errors, and the content is poor. Some authors are unsure about what they have written as they just copy and paste the content from various internet sources. The same case is with the publishing houses. They publish the given content without going through it because they only think about money. This money-making mentality of the so-called authors and publishers has put our education system at risk.

What do you expect when anything you write gets published? The market will be flooded with garbage for the readers not standard textbooks to read. The same case is with us at present. Whenever readers go to a bookshop they only find books with poor content. Sellers also brainwash the readers’ mind and make them buy the book, which gives them more profit than good books by some proficient writers. To solve this problem, the government should introduce a licensing policy for writing and publishing textbooks. It is absurd that liquor sellers need a license in our country but not authors. In addition to this, publishing houses should also be strictly monitored.

Freedom of publication where you can publish anything should be stopped as it threatens the quality of education. Only professionals with a license should be allowed to write and publish textbooks. So-called authors should remember this: Your textbooks are not only read by the people whom you expect them to read but often by those people who know much more than you. Publishing books is not a joke as many think.